Page 42 of Beauty and Her Beasts (Dirty Paranormal Fairytale Haremlan 1)

He dashed over the bed and hopped to the floor before reaching into the drawer of the nightstand and pulled out a pistol. He pointed the barrel at me. His hands shook, even though he tried to act brave now that he had a weapon. One he clearly believed would stop me.

To be honest, it could, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. And this was the other part of the danger in humans consumed by their fear. They hid weapons. Deadly ones.

I growled and charged. The gun went off. The bullet whizzed by me, lodging into the wall. Alarms rang through the sleeping town. I tackled the man to the ground. His gun slid across the floor to the other side of the room. As he whimpered, probably pissing himself as well, I leaned in as close to his ear as possible. And with all the threat I could muster into my words, I said, “Consider this your only warning. If you come near Allana, or even threaten her again, it won’t be just me coming for you next time. And there won’t be anything left of you to find.”

I climbed off of him. He tackled me to the floor by grabbing ahold of one of my legs. I landed on my side. Pain splintered through my ribs as I gasped for air.

“Help! Intruder! Help!” Collin screamed.

I growled and settled my gaze on him. He smirked at me as though he had already won. I rammed a foot into his nose. He released me instantly. I quickly climbed to my feet and hobbled out of the inn and into the woods where I shifted into my wolf and ran straight for the castle.

It was late morning by the time I arrived. The sun still had yet to penetrate through the woods with its warmth. Still the light casted an eerie, foggy glow along the forest floor. Frost still sparkled like diamonds along the fallen leaves.

Winter was quickly approaching. I frowned. I hated the cold.

I stopped at my cabin first and tended to my head and cracked ribs before cleaning up and putting on a fresh set of clothes. Once I was dressed, I went to find Allana, Gunnar, and King.

I stopped at Allana’s room first, imagining her to be asleep. I couldn’t think of a better way to let her know I was back than kissing her good morning. But when I arrived at the door, I heard laughter coming from her.

I frowned, unsure if this was an appropriate time to intrude. If Gunnar or King was there, I didn’t want to interrupt their time. It sickened me, I was honoring our agreement. Still, I stood at her door, feeling like an idiot.

Finally, I knocked.

The door instantly opened. It was King.

“Declan,” he said. “You’re back!”

He stood back, pulling the door open wider. The one thing I wasn’t expecting was Gunnar and King being in Allana’s room at the same time, seemingly having a good time. But the second my eyes fell on Allana, a sigh of relief escaped me. I rushed into the room and swooped her into my arms. I gritted against the pain that rocketed through my ribs.

“I’m so glad you’re back,” she said.

“I’m so glad you are safe,” I muttered into her long, brown hair.

She pulled away from me and studied my face. “What happened?”

I gave them all a surmised version of everything that went down. Once I was finished, the men looked ready to kill and Allana seemed unmoved.

“He’s such an ass,” she muttered.

“We can’t put it past him to show up here next time,” Gunnar asked. “Especially now that we made a show of how protective we are of her.”

“If there is a next time,” I added. “I did a rather good job at convincing him.”

King shook his head. “We continue as planned. I’ll hire security for additional protection. He wouldn’t dare step a foot on this land if he knew what was good for him.”

I glared at King. “You can’t possibly think that is a good idea.”

“What do you mean?” Allana said.

She still didn’t know about the party King was throwing for her and to bring in more business. It was meant to be a surprise, but I felt like it was the perfect distraction that gave Collin more opportunity than he needed.

“It’s a surprise,” Gunnar said.

Allana beamed. “Oh! I love surprises!”

I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose.

King smiled. I gaped at him, wondering if hell had frozen over. For the first time in years, he actually smiled.

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